O'Reilly's Tools of Change; Publishing Evolution or Revolution?

i M in the first row of the Metropolitan Ballroom at the O'Reilly Tools of Change Publishing Conference, listening to Theo Gray's Keynote: The Elements -- How we did it and Where we're Going.

In many ways, Gray's story of his book, "The Elements" is really a chronicle of the evolution of the greater publishing industry.

Gray's book was published as one of the first "eBooks" as a CD-ROM in 1992. There was little interest. Gray explored publishing on the Web but found no one wants to pay for content on the Web. The book was eventually published in print and sold 320,000 copies around the world. But the real revolution came with the iPad edition. Gray, and Wolfram Technologies, had an amazing chance – to change publishing. The content for the book was ready, but the interactivity, the APP, had yet to be developed. With only 60 days to deliver, Gray and Wolfram created tools and one of the most amazing apps ever! Using Wolfram’s Mathematica, code was written to generate the hallmark 360 degree diagrams for “The Elements!”

According to AppAdvice: "The Elements: A Visual Exploration is a hardback book of The Periodic Table with immense descriptions of each element. The complete hardback book is included as an app with so much detail and information that couldn’t be possible as a simple ibook. The Elements: A Visual Exploration is a hardback book of The Periodic Table with immense descriptions of each element. The complete hardback book is included as an app with so much detail and information that couldn’t be possible as a simple ibook."
Note: The Elements even comes with a theme song or listen to Gray’s personal favorite version sung in Japanese!

The point of the Keynote, and the TOC Conference, is that we are in the midst of a publishing Revolution!

Point well taken!

Dianne Kennedy

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